When you’re homeless your feet take a beating. That was the simple fact behind the idea to provide a foot washing service.

…

One man’s feet were so frost bitten from last winter that it hurt too much to brush them with a towel. Another man asked a volunteer to recite the little piggy nursery rhyme on his toes. A third said it was the first time another human being had touched him in months.

“At its core, the plan would set up a new National Ocean Council to guide a holistic ‘ecosystem-based’ approach intended to elevate and unify what has long been a piecemeal approach by US agencies toward ocean policy and development – from oil and gas exploration to fisheries management to ship transportation to recreation.”

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was recently interviewed by the conservative Washington Times and stated his opinion on a variety of current events. Barbour’s name has been floated as a potential 2012 Republican Presidential nominee and he appeals strongly to the party’s conservative base. The most interesting portion of the interview focuses on federal government spending versus state government spending. Barbour’s reply also reveals how quickly we have forgotten the problems of our past. Those who advance a states’ rights agenda and hold up the Tenth Amendment as justification often forget the massive problems this country faced when we focused more on individual states at the expense of Washington, DC. While placing more control in a centralized system of government has created some problems, they are nothing compared to way it was when the reverse was true.

Climate Crisis and Immigration Reform are unfortunately, inexorably linked. And as is the American way, we are dealing with both of them from a starting point of American Exceptionalism. We are approaching them in terms of the Right Wing Framing that the Corporatists have succeeded in imposing on us. We are approaching them with…heh…a Pre 9/11 mindset.

The other day I heard some hired gleeman whining out Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone”, and smirked a bit to myself as he sang the line, “You’re invisible now, you have no secrets to conceal.”

So how does it feel?

How does it feel to be on the wrong end of warrantless wiretapping, illegal surveillance that would have been a felony in many a previous decade, and the continued off-the-rails abuse of power wielded by law enforcement and governmental agencies?

Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year — one every 12 minutes — in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

“We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

A 1993 study found that those without health insurance are 25% more likely to die. That study put the number of annual deaths at 18,00 a year. The new study used the same methodology. It excludes people over the age of 65, because they have health insurance. It’s called Medicare. A government run health plan. The increased number of deaths is due largely to the increased number of uninsured. 27,000 more, each year. Since 1993. Since the Clinton Administration’s attempt to reform health care was destroyed, largely by the insurance industry.

This past Tuesday I was called upon to deliver some words about my colleague, Hui-Chuan (Jane) Cheng. The following are the final text of my words, which I promised some people I would make available.

Besides being a full professor in Computer Information Systems at Bloomfield College, Dr. Cheng also taught at the Chinese School in Livingston, NJ. Besides teaching Chinese heritage there, I have no doubt that she created their web site.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Jane’s death hit many of us hard. It is difficult to imagine…it has been difficult to cope…with her not being here anymore. I mean it is possible that a day could go by that we don’t discover that something that Jane always took care of didn’t happen. Hasn’t seemed to happen yet, but I suppose it could happen.

That “Noble Cause”, which one “GoldStar Mom” asked to be answered very publicly and never was, comes when those who serve do everything in their power, and know those around them will do same, to save and protect those they are serving with, especially as they serve the Country and are sent into others Countries, wrong policies or right!

When the battles start that’s what’s on their minds, even before saving themselves!

Lawmakers in both parties raised concerns Thursday that the health-care reform bill offered by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus a day earlier would impose too high a cost on middle-class Americans and said they will seek to change the legislation to ease that potential burden.

The Baucus plan is the product of a year-long effort to find a middle ground between the expansion of government-run health care that liberal Democrats are seeking and the private insurance overhaul that many Republicans favor. But with finance panel members on both sides expressing concerns about the Baucus draft, major revisions could come through amendments in committee and on the Senate floor and in final negotiations with the House.

Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year – one every 12 minutes – in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

“We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.